The Absence of Light
by HomemadeMagic
Summary: Sirius comes to terms with some stupid decisions he's made, and has to deal with the consequences of his actions. I have no idea what the title has to do with anything. Written after OotP, but there are no spoilers or canon conflictions.


He didn't look at me.  
  
He didn't look at me, or talk to me, for an entire week.  
  
It was the longest week of my life. I felt like an arse. Like a slug. Slime not fit to be on Snape's shoes. So low even dirt wouldn't talk to me.  
  
And then he _did_ look at me, and it was worse.  
  
When I first met him, every time I looked into his eyes, it was a challenge. I never knew what he was thinking. It used to be a game - I would look at him, and try to guess what he was thinking, and we would waste an hour or two laughing and not getting anything done as my guesses got more and more ridiculous.  
  
And James would look at us and roll his eyes, and he would tell me I was an arse, and we would get in a fight, and then _he_ would sit there laughing at us, and his eyes would light up with amusement and we never did know what he had been thinking before - what he had been guarding behind those light blue eyes of his - but it didn't matter, because now there was nothing to guard and his eyes were laughing and open.  
  
But then...well. Now I knew what he wasn't letting us see in his eyes. Now I knew why we had never even come close to guessing.  
  
There were things there, things in his face and his eyes when he looked at me, that I hope to God I never see again.  
  
And I couldn't look away.  
  
I spent hours trying to get him to just glance at me, just once. Just to get him to forgive me.  
  
"Hey, Remus, look! A dancing toad!"  
  
He wouldn't look up from his book. Ever.  
  
"Remus?"  
  
He wouldn't talk.  
  
"I'm so sorry."  
  
There was still no answer.  
  
"Remus, please! I didn't mean...I just didn't _think_."  
  
His face was hidden, and I couldn't see what he thought of this statement.  
  
"Please, Remus, just look at me! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen, and you're driving me crazy, you won't even _look _at me!"  
  
And then he did.  
  
At that point in my existence, I had never felt so incredibly low. I thought I had been feeling guilty before - now I knew I had just been full of it. I hadn't felt guilty. _This_ was guilt.  
  
This was something beyond anything I had expected. This was seeing pain, anger, frustration, hurt...and so many other things I can't even describe...and knowing it was _my_ fault.  
  
I couldn't speak. I think he did it on purpose. I think he knew he was guarding his face before then, and I think he had been protecting me from it. And I think he decided I needed to see.  
  
I couldn't find my voice. It was gone. There were no words. And yet I tried. "Remus..." And my voice cracked.  
  
He just _looked_ at me. Looked at me with a wealth of emotions, and now that I could read his emotions in his face, I knew exactly what his eyes were saying to me.  
  
_How could you. How could you do this to me_, they said. _How could you put me in danger. How could you put someone else, even someone you hate, in danger. How could you put yourself in danger. You matter to me. You and James and Peter. I trusted you. And you threw it away. He could have _died_, Sirius. I would have been sent away. Expelled. And then what of your brilliant prank? How could you do this to me. How could you do this to yourself. Haven't you learned anything? I _trusted_ you. Can I ever trust you again?  
  
_And then he closed his book, stood up, and went up to his dormitory.  
  
Our dormitory.  
  
Alone.  
  
I couldn't follow. I could never follow.  
  
I turned and left the room. Calmly. I didn't know where I was going, but I was _going_. I was in a secret passage. I was a dog. Dog emotions are less complicated than human emotions.  
  
But it still hurt.  
  
The passage was big. It was the one behind the mirror, my mind informed me numbly.  
  
I was human again. I couldn't run away from my feelings. I had to face them. Remus had to face worse every day. If he could live with that, all the time, day in and day out, I could face this guilt, this monstrous thing looming over me and eating away and my insides.  
  
I didn't cry. I've never been one to cry. I sat there, in the dark, with my fists clenched and my eyes narrowed, staring into blackness.  
  
Blackness. The absence of light. The absence of the moon.  
  
The moon was waning, I reminded myself, almost automatically. I had gotten so used to following the lunar calendar.  
  
Would I ever follow it anymore?  
  
I sat there, with these black thoughts, half-amused, half-disgusted with myself. Sirius Black, sitting alone in a passageway, thinking bitter, depressed, guilty thoughts.  
  
Who would've guessed?  
  
And then, all of a sudden, I felt _angry_. Angry at myself, angry at Remus, angry at SNAPE! angry at whoever the hell decided to make such a nice person a werewolf, angry at EVERYONE. Angry at the WORLD. I was ANGRY. I was PEEVED. I was ready to throw things and scream and rave and rant in a way only Sirius Black could. I was tired of guilt, tired of angst, tired of EVERYTHING, and I wanted to punch something.  
  
I did punch something. Hard. The wall didn't punch back. My fist bled. I unclenched it and realized my fingernails had been digging into my skin, and my palm was bleeding, too. So was the other one. I was bleeding all over the dirt, there was blood on my robes and the floor, and I was standing there, INFURIATED, and two seconds away from doing it again.  
  
But I didn't. I just turned around and walked back out, back out of the passage, back through the hallways, back to the Common Room, back up the stairs, back to my dormitory, back to Remus.  
  
Back to Remus.  
  
He wasn't reading. He was looking out of the window, staring at nothing. It was grey outside - the sky, the lake, the trees - everything was grey and dreary. It was appropriate.  
  
"Remus," I said.  
  
He looked up, and I met his eyes, half-afraid I would see what I had seen before, but he had closed the doors again and there was nothing there.  
  
"You're a mess," he said.  
  
I looked at the floor. "I know."  
  
He was watching me. I looked back up.  
  
"I'm sorry," I whispered, and this time it was different. I wasn't apologizing for the same things this time.  
  
"I know."  
  
"Can you forgive me?"  
  
"Eventually. Maybe."  
  
"All right."  
  
There was silence. He was watching me, and I couldn't meet his eyes.  
  
"Will you ever trust me?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"...oh." I looked up then, and there was the betrayal again.  
  
"You promised."  
  
"I know."  
  
Again, silence. He was looking out the window again.  
  
"I'm so sorry," I said at last. Again.  
  
He turned to me with a crooked smile that I wasn't expecting. "You keep saying that. Stop it. I know you're sorry. It'll mend."  
  
My mouth fell open. "You..."  
  
"Sirius. I've had worse done to me. Said to me. I'll have worse yet. You weren't thinking. It's not out of character. And now you're feeling so guilty you're eating yourself up. I can't let you eat yourself up. So stop it. And stop apologizing." He paused. "And don't do it _ever_ again."  
  
It was, if possible, the exact thing to say to make me feel ten times more guilty. He was so _good. _I didn't deserve him, not in the tiniest little bit. He was going to forgive me. Maybe not now, but he had said he would eventually. He was going to let my own guilt punish me, he wasn't going to do anything.  
  
I could have endured shouting. I could have endured being locked in the dungeon and hung by my heels or being forced to serenade Snape while wearing a dress. I could have endured any amount of cruelty, but _kindness_...it was the worst pain he could have inflicted on me.  
  
I was staring at him. He was looking back at me. Levelly. Like he knew what I was thinking.  
  
"That hurts more," I said.  
  
"I know," was his answer.  
  
  
I never stopped trying to repay him. I never could. My own guilt kept eating at me, long after he had forgiven me and gone back to laughing with me. I started to toe the line. I started to listen to him when he told me I was going too far. I even started to convince James to quit it when I knew we had gone too far, or when Remus thought we were pushing the edge too much.  
  
I never saw his eyes or his face unguarded again. I guess it was my own fault. Always, around me, he closed off just a little. I didn't know if he would ever trust me again.  
  
He did, eventually. When he saw I was trying my hardest not to go overboard, he started to trust me again. Little by little, I earned his trust back.  
  
It was long and slow.  
  
But it was worth it.  
  
I had learned my lesson. I was never going to risk a friendship like that again.  
  
From then on I was loyal to my friends and the people I loved, loyal to the point of death.  
  
  
A/N: Well. That was interesting. ...it's 10:30 and I didn't even notice. It came out of nowhere, I'm telling you.  
  
I'd like to work this into Cave Canes, but I'm not sure how. Maybe I will eventually.  
  
This is really, really odd. I've never tried to write anything on this subject before, but it just...came out of me, like it was always there, just waiting for me to find the right words to write it with. *shakes head* What a thing to try and capture. I'd always figured it was beyond my skill. Maybe it is.  



End file.
